Has anyone tried to have a cable carrier bracket mated to a base and the other bracket mounted to a slide and have the carrier links mated to each other and the brackets such that the base bracket is fixed and the bracket/links would travel with the slide?
I've tried (a few years back) and then gave up because of the all the tedius mating and tangent flipping. However, this type of functionality (however implemented) would be just awsome and really beneficial for visualization. Whichever cad company comes out with a solution first will look pretty innovative for an assembly feature in my opinion. Same goes for flexable hoses/cables.
Yes I have, it was a few years ago now (at least 5) and I was using SW2005.
It was a nightmare, but in the end it worked. I used limiting angle mates between links. It was unstable and would often turn inside out, but at times it worked fine.
This was on a transfer with 750mm stroke. Good luck getting more than that to work.
SW does not have inverse kinetics so the chain will blowup when you try to move it. The best you can do is two configurations and that is hit and miss, most of the time it will blowup also.